37DETAILED ACTION
The present application, filed on or after March 16, 2013, is being examined under the first inventor to file provisions of the AIA .
Claim Status
Claims 1 and 131 are amended. Claims 2-4, 7-12, 16-130, 132, and 134-155 are cancelled. Claim 133 is missing the status identifier, which should be (Previously Presented).
The amendment to claim 1 overcomes the claim objection over the term “precursor feed material”. The other claim objection over the term “the” is maintained below.
Claims 1, 5, 6, 13-15, 131, and 133 are pending for examination below.
Response to Arguments
Applicant's arguments filed 29 December 2025 have been fully considered but they are not persuasive.
Applicant argues on page 7 of the Remarks that while some distillation columns recycle an externally condensed liquid reflux, it is well known that recycling the reflux is not a necessary process feature in distillation (e.g. single stage distillation).
In response, the Examiner notes that Salazar-Guillen makes no mention of single stage distillation. Salazar-Guillen states that the separation unit 154 can be any suitable separation unit including a distillation column, where the separation unit outputs multiple products including gases 162, liquid 164, and heavy 166 (paragraph [0108]). It is well understood in the art that “single stage distillation” is not performed in a distillation column and does not produce the multiple products disclosed by Salazar-Guillen. Thus, the Examiner continues to assert that the distillation column of Salazar-Guillen would require a reflux, as taught by Perry’s Handbook, and the process of Salazar-Guillen as evidenced by Perry continues to anticipate the claimed process.
Applicant further argues on page 7 of the Remarks that Salazar-Guillen teaches that the recycle does not facilitate further conversion of the material (see paragraph [0114]), which discourages one of ordinary skill to employ the recycle to increase the product yield. Contrary to Salazar-Guillen, Applicant has recognized the utility in employing the reflux to convert the precursor feed material.
In response, any argument as to whether or not the non-participating lipid material of Salazar-Guillen is further reacted on recycle is moot, because there is no requirement in the claims that the recycled material must participate in the reaction. Paragraph [0114] of Salazar-Guillen merely states that the heavy fraction can recycled in perpetuity because the heavy molecules are prevented from degrading and forming coke. Further, even if such a limitation were added, the fact that the inventor has recognized another advantage which would flow naturally from following the suggestion of the prior art cannot be the basis for patentability when the differences would otherwise be obvious. See Ex parte Obiaya, 227 USPQ 58, 60 (Bd. Pat. App. & Inter. 1985). The recycling of the heavy fraction of Salazar-Guillen continues to meet the claimed limitation of supplying the liquid fractionation product to the conversion zone, and Salazar-Guillen as evidenced by Perry’s Handbook continues to anticipate claim 1.
Applicant argues on pages 8-9 of the Remarks that Salazar-Guillen does not teach claim 131 as amended because the liquid product of Salazar-Guillen is not subjected to a further fractionation based on volatility differences and under vacuum conditions, and the Examiner has not established a prima facie case of obviousness to perform this modification.
In response, the Examiner respectfully disagrees. Salazar-Guillen explicitly teaches that multiple separation units can be combined (paragraph [0102]), including gravity separation and vacuum distillation as options for the separation units. The combination of the gravity separation unit and vacuum distillation unit thus is obvious by the explicit teachings of Salazar-Guillen of multiple units which can include the specific gravity separation and vacuum distillation units as claimed. The Examiner properly made a prima facie case of obviousness in the previous rejection and maintains it below.
Applicant further argues on page 9 of the Remarks that Salazar-Guillen does not recognize the advantages that Applicant has determined and claimed in claim 131.
In response, as noted above, the fact that the inventor has recognized another advantage which would flow naturally from following the suggestion of the prior art cannot be the basis for patentability when the differences would otherwise be obvious. See Ex parte Obiaya, 227 USPQ 58, 60 (Bd. Pat. App. & Inter. 1985). Salazar-Guillen teaches a combination of separation units including a gravity separation unit and vacuum distillation unit (paragraph [0102]), which render obvious the claimed separations, absent any evidence that the process of Applicant provides critical or unexpected results over other combination of separation units. The instant application as filed does not contain any evidence as to the criticality or unexpected results, and as such the rejection is maintained.
Claim Objections
Claim 1 is objected to because of the following informalities:
With regard to claim 1, the claim recites “based on the total weight” in line 4. This should be “a total weight” for antecedent basis purposes.
Appropriate correction is required.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 102
The following is a quotation of the appropriate paragraphs of 35 U.S.C. 102 that form the basis for the rejections under this section made in this Office action:
A person shall be entitled to a patent unless –
(a)(1) the claimed invention was patented, described in a printed publication, or in public use, on sale, or otherwise available to the public before the effective filing date of the claimed invention.
Claims 1, 5, and 6 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as being anticipated by Salazar-Guillen et al. (US 2012/0101014) as evidenced by Perry et al. (Perry’s Chemical Engineers’ Handbook 7th Edition).
With regard to claim 1, Salazar-Guillen (SG) teaches a method for conversion of lipid materials to hydrocarbons (paragraph [0091]). SG teaches that the feedstock comprises entirely (100 wt%) free fatty acids (paragraph [0042]), which is within the range of at least 80 wt% free fatty acids of instant claim 1. SG teaches that the method comprises (see also Figure 4):
a) passing the lipid feedstock to a first reactor 102 and second reactor 104 (conversion zone) (paragraph [0038]) to form a product comprising fuel gas (gaseous hydrocarbons), water, and hydrocarbons (gaseous hydrocarbon material-comprising intermediate product) (paragraph [0103]).
b) distilling (fractionating) the product in a separation unit 154 to separate the gaseous products 162 (gaseous hydrocarbon material-comprising product), the reaction products 164, and a heavy fraction 166 (liquid fractionation zone product) (paragraph [0108]).
c) recycling the heavy fraction 166 to the reaction zone 102 (conversion zone) (paragraph [0112]).
SG is silent regarding i) condensing a portion of the gaseous products and recycling to the fractionation as liquid reflux and ii) where the condensing is effected in response to a heat sink disposed externally of the conversion zone.
With regard to i), Perry teaches that distillation is a known separation medium, which comprises passing vapor to the top of the distillation column, cooling, and condensing the vapor to return it as reflux to the column (page 13-4, General Principles). As such, Perry teaches that it is known that a distillation column comprises a condenser which cools and recycles a portion of the vapor product to the distillation column as liquid reflux. Therefore, while SG does not explicitly teach the condensing and reflux of the gaseous products, one of ordinary skill in the art would understand that the distilling of SG uses at least one distillation column which comprises a condenser which condenses and recycles as liquid reflux a portion of the gaseous products, as this is known to be how distillation columns work, as evidenced by Perry.
With regard to ii), SG teaches that the separation unit 154 is located downstream (external) to the reactors 102, 104 (conversion zone) (Figure 4). Thus, the condenser (heat sink) in the separation unit 154 is disposed externally of the conversion zone, as claimed.
With regard to claim 5, Perry teaches that distillation columns (fractionation columns) use trays and/or packings to bring the liquid and gas into contact (page 13-4, General Principles). Thus, the distillation of SG comprises contacting media as claimed.
With regard to claim 6, SG teaches the separation of the product comprising gaseous and liquid hydrocarbons into a gaseous fraction and a liquid fraction (paragraph [0108]). While SG does not explicitly teach that the concentration of gaseous hydrocarbon material in the gaseous hydrocarbon material-comprising product is higher than the concentration of gaseous material in the intermediate product, one of ordinary skill in the art understands that when fractionation takes place, the fractions formed have a higher concentration of the components in the fraction than the original feed to the fractionation, as that is the goal of fractionation. Thus, the gaseous product 162 comprising fuel gas has a higher concentration of fuel gas than the product from the reactor 104, as claimed.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 103 which forms the basis for all obviousness rejections set forth in this Office action:
A patent for a claimed invention may not be obtained, notwithstanding that the claimed invention is not identically disclosed as set forth in section 102, if the differences between the claimed invention and the prior art are such that the claimed invention as a whole would have been obvious before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to a person having ordinary skill in the art to which the claimed invention pertains. Patentability shall not be negated by the manner in which the invention was made.
Claims 13-15 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Salazar-Guillen et al. (US 2012/0101014) as evidenced by Perry et al. (Perry’s Chemical Engineers’ Handbook 7th Edition).
With regard to claim 13, SG teaches the method above. SG further teaches that the residence time (space time) of the feed in the reaction zone is at least approximately 0.3 s (paragraph [0087]). This overlaps the range of at least 10 minutes of instant claim 13, rendering the range prima facie obvious.
With regard to claims 14 and 15, SG as evidenced by Perry teaches the method above, where a portion of the gaseous product is recycled to the distillation column as reflux.
SG as evidenced by Perry does not specifically teach the reflux ratio is based on the chain length of the hydrocarbon material in the gaseous product or the chain length of free fatty acid material within the condensed hydrocarbon material-comprising product. However, determining a reflux ratio for a distillation separation is well within the skill of one of ordinary skill in the art. One of ordinary skill in the art would find it obvious to use known information for the determination, including the chain length of the hydrocarbon in the reflux liquid and/or the chain length of the remaining free fatty acids in the reflux liquid, in order to determine a suitable reflux ratio to achieve the desired separation of gaseous material from liquid hydrocarbon product. The determination would be done without undue experimentation and with a reasonable expectation of success.
Claims 131 and 133 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Salazar-Guillen et al. (US 2012/0101014).
With regard to claim 131, SG teaches a method for conversion of lipid materials to hydrocarbons (paragraph [0091]) where the lipid materials include free fatty acids (paragraph [0042]). SG also teaches that the method to convert to hydrocarbons comprises heating the feed in a system 100 (process vessel) such that the fatty acids are converted to renewable fuels including gasoline and diesel, where the conversion comprises cracking, hydrodeoxygenation, decarboxylation, and hydroisomerization (paragraph [0091] and Fig. 1). The instant specification teaches that pyrolysis of free fatty acids includes decarboxylation and cracking and produces naphtha and diesel (paragraph [0037[). Thus, while SG does not use the term “pyrolysis”, because SG teaches a similar heating step of the same free fatty acid feed which includes the same cracking and decarboxylation steps and produces the same diesel and gasoline (naphtha) products, it is understood that the method of SG is pyrolysis, as claimed.
SG teaches that the method further comprises passing the effluent 110 comprising fuel gas and liquid hydrocarbons (paragraph [0103]) from the system 100 (process vessel) to a separation section which can comprise multiple separation units, including a gravity separation unit and a vacuum distillation unit (paragraph [0102] and Fig. 1). A gravity separation unit separates liquid from gas by buoyancy forces, as claimed. A vacuum distillation unit separates liquid from gas under vacuum conditions in a heating zone, as claimed. The liquid hydrocarbons produced in the separation are an externally disposed liquid hydrocarbon material-comprising product as claimed, because the separation units are separate from the reactors in the system 100 (Fig. 1). It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time of the invention to use the combination of separation units as claimed, because SG teaches the option for multiple separation units including the claimed gravity separation and vacuum distillation.
SG does not specifically teach fractionating the liquid product from the gravity separation in the vacuum distillation unit to produce a gaseous material portion which is recycled to the reactor, as claimed. However, SG teaches that the method can comprise multiple separation units including gravity separation and vacuum distillation (paragraph [0102]) and that the products from the multiple separation units can include at least one gaseous portion (paragraphs [0103] and [0114] and Fig. 6) which is recycled to the reactor (paragraph [0110]).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time of the invention to use the vacuum distillation on the liquid portion of the product from the gravity separation unit to produce the gaseous portion which is recycled to the reactor, as claimed, because SG teaches the multiple units including gravity separation and vacuum distillation which produce a gaseous portion, which is then recycled to the reactor (paragraph [0110]).
With regard to claim 133, SG teaches that the separation unit includes a vacuum distillation column (paragraph [0102]). While SG does not specify the pressure of the vacuum distillation column, it is understood in the art that a vacuum is any pressure less than atmospheric pressure (14.7 psia). Thus, one of ordinary skill in the art would understand that the distillation takes place within the range less than 14.7 psia, which overlaps the range of 0.0725 to 0.725 psia of instant claim 112, rendering the range prima facie obvious.
Conclusion
THIS ACTION IS MADE FINAL. Applicant is reminded of the extension of time policy as set forth in 37 CFR 1.136(a).
A shortened statutory period for reply to this final action is set to expire THREE MONTHS from the mailing date of this action. In the event a first reply is filed within TWO MONTHS of the mailing date of this final action and the advisory action is not mailed until after the end of the THREE-MONTH shortened statutory period, then the shortened statutory period will expire on the date the advisory action is mailed, and any nonprovisional extension fee (37 CFR 1.17(a)) pursuant to 37 CFR 1.136(a) will be calculated from the mailing date of the advisory action. In no event, however, will the statutory period for reply expire later than SIX MONTHS from the mailing date of this final action.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to ALYSSA L CEPLUCH whose telephone number is (571)270-5752. The examiner can normally be reached M-F, 8:30 am-5 pm, EST.
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If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, In Suk Bullock can be reached at 571-272-5954. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/Alyssa L Cepluch/Examiner, Art Unit 1772
/IN SUK C BULLOCK/Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 1772
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